I've been programming in Java since I was 13, when I was 15.5 or so I decided to pursue developing skillz in computer art and such, so I sort of abandoned programming, only occasionally writing some code now and then. About six months back, I decided I'm not really cut out to be an artist, so I've picked up programming again.

I'm turning eighteen at the end of this month. I've already bought a car (found a great deal on an almost mint condition 1993 3000GT SL), and I obviously need a job for insurance when I get my license, which I'll be getting at the end of this month.

Now, I can work at a hospital for about ten dollars an hour, which is a good wage...but I'd rather not. I'd rather not work at all, but I need money, and unfortunately nobody planted a money tree in my backyard.

So if I have to work, I'd prefer a job in IT at the very least, and I'd like something that'd have me writing Java code.

I searched on Monster for java programming jobs in my area, and everybody seems to want college graduates with one to two years of professional experience at the least.

Should I give up on trying to find a programming job? If not, where should I look?

It's time to prove to your friends that your worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying; sometimes that means killing a whole lotta people.

It's hard enough for CS graduates to find programming jobs, much less highschoolers. I've not ever seen a highschool kid working in any office I've been at (college interns being the youngest).

I think you are going to find it incredibly difficult to get a job like that, unless you happen to know someone. Just do like the rest of us do and make pizza, go to college, then struggle to get that job again.

Hmm. It's not my first career choice. My primary choice and dream is to be a filmmaker, but I'm being practical and realizing the chances of that are slim, so I'm going to minor in CS (majoring in Film Production). Is minoring good enough?

It's time to prove to your friends that your worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying; sometimes that means killing a whole lotta people.

I've been programming since I was 8, but my college degree fundementally changed the way I go about writing code.

This is something I'm going to have to 100% agree with.The way I think has significantly changed.

Back OT:There is far more to programming than knowing how to use a language.I never had any trouble going to or from any computer language, this has not made me a good programmer.Just because you can use a spanner doesn't make you a good builder. Anyone can learn how to use a spanner.

I would just like to note that just because Java programming on your own is fun doesn't make it fun when doing it in industry.The chances are you will eventually learn to hate a lot of things.Find something you really love, this may take some time. It has taken me several years to do this.Originally I just wanted to do something with computers, now I wouldn't touch something I don't like (networking, databases and a few other fields).

Gah. I think you're all wrong. Send me your CV + portfolio (adam at mindcandydesign.com) - I'm looking for someone who can churn out small and interesting java games very fast, and do their own artwork too - but since the timescales are very short, the aim is to be cunning and avoid needing much artwork in the first place.

If you look at the best games from the 4k contest, that's the lowest end of what I'm after. The highest end is e.g. a 3D game written in 3 weeks from scratch (using as many libraries as you can, and any other shortcuts you can think of).

Unfortunately, I really want someone who can work from London, so you probably won't get it, but it's worth a try (there is a very small possibility we'd accept a remote worker).

About the years of experience, you can allways colaborate in open source proyects.There is no excuse for a just-graduated cs engeneer for not having such a thing like experience (or at least that was said in a open source speech at the college)

About the years of experience, you can allways colaborate in open source proyects.There is no excuse for a just-graduated cs engeneer for not having such a thing like experience (or at least that was said in a open source speech at the college)

Well I have plenty of time, I'm not even a highschool grad yet.

It's time to prove to your friends that your worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying; sometimes that means killing a whole lotta people.

Gah. I think you're all wrong. Send me your CV + portfolio (adam at mindcandydesign.com) - I'm looking for someone who can churn out small and interesting java games very fast, and do their own artwork too - but since the timescales are very short, the aim is to be cunning and avoid needing much artwork in the first place.

If you look at the best games from the 4k contest, that's the lowest end of what I'm after. The highest end is e.g. a 3D game written in 3 weeks from scratch (using as many libraries as you can, and any other shortcuts you can think of).

Unfortunately, I really want someone who can work from London, so you probably won't get it, but it's worth a try (there is a very small possibility we'd accept a remote worker).

I PM-ed you.

It's time to prove to your friends that your worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying; sometimes that means killing a whole lotta people.

Im in a kinda similar position to that guy, and i saw some degrees in Video game programming, would you recommend them or comp. science? Has anyone got a degree in video gme programming(i think that was what it was called). Im not really considering them tho due to my being a noob. At least i think im a noob, how can i tell

Im in a kinda similar position to that guy, and i saw some degrees in Video game programming, would you recommend them or comp. science? Has anyone got a degree in video gme programming(i think that was what it was called). Im not really considering them tho due to my being a noob. At least i think im a noob, how can i tell

That's a totally separate question deserving it's own thread.

I've seen ONE highschool student/recent graduate in the work place; she was a hot little 18 year old who got an internship with the desktop support guys were I work. I promise you she got the internship for one reason only; the guys wanted to have something nice to look at .

Anyway, the job market is becoming more brutal all the time. With trade between nations becoming more free (EU, CAFTA, NAFT, WTO etc) it's just going to get worse. The truth is it doesn't take alot of skill to crank out business app version 99812744.3 so employers can afford to pick from a large pool of eligible people. IMHO.

good games degree is very good, and gets you a headstart in the industry, so long as "lead programmer" is not the job you aspire to - a true compsci will ALWAYS beat anyone else.

This is not true. (I.e. I must defend my degree )

I find a Computer Engineering degree is quite valuable and in many cases it I would prefer it to a Comp Sci. degree. Generally because the Somp Sci. degrees come from the Math dept. and the Comp Eng. degree comes from the engineering dept. The Math guys like numbers for the sake of numbers. The engineers like to make stuff that works.

My first job in highschool was a programming job. I continued at that job for a few summers in highschool before I went to university to get my degree. (In Computer Engineering, of course). That first job was actually working for the board of education, writing educational software for grades 1-6. Things like text adventures, tetris, interactive choose your own adventure writer, math quizes with a theme, prgs for yonger kids to identify things that are the same and things that are different.. It was fun and sure beat working in the service industry .

Hm, in the UK we don't really have the two separate... there's generally just Comp. Sci. The only lower form of life in the university were the cyberneticists.(Yes, the world famous Reading University, home of Captain Cyborg!)

Yeah, sorry, we dont "do" comp.eng. here . You can do electrical eng, but that is very remote from everything games related - you do even less C/C++/Java programming than a lot of the plain engineering degrees do, since the elect.eng. is (IIRC) m-processor design, VLSI, PCB's, assembler, etc.

First at 18 it's enough time to get a degree. Second if money are what is is for, it would be better if he would work in hospital, and do programming in his free time, and try programming job after finishing university.

10$ * 40 hour * 4 weeks * ~25 (conversion)40000

So it's more than is paid for common programming jobs in this country. AFAIC. (last times I seen 30000 / 25 as monthly salary for university educated.)

Because programming jobs market is going to be nivelizated, salaries are going to drop at least by 25 %. That is, aprox. to 75 % of current new jobs salaries. If you are in the US, its economy stagnation, and lack of long term research is widely known. It could be aproximated it will get itself into problems in 2 years and for at least 3 years.So smarter thing would be to held some job with long term availability, and try to get a paper similar, or identical to degree.

Of course one of major problems with universities is they are not create directly usable abilities. (nonvocational education) So this mean that everyone who would like to know something should do also a work outside of university (and by work I don't mean for salary work, I mean research/development in field. And of course learning how to do things that will not be explained on university.)

And one more thing.

If I'd have company, I will not hire anyone lazy, even for unpaid work.

A sidenote, movie making might be easier to get into. Barriers and costs for movie studios have decreased, so it's somewhat cheaper and easy for them to exist, and do stuff. Not to mention an hypothetical increase in TV studios, because of digital broadcasting.

First at 18 it's enough time to get a degree. Second if money are what is is for, it would be better if he would work in hospital, and do programming in his free time, and try programming job after finishing university.

10$ * 40 hour * 4 weeks * ~25 (conversion)40000

I'm still in highschool (actually college courses for highschool credit) ; 20 hour week is most I could manage.

Quote

A sidenote, movie making might be easier to get into. Barriers and costs for movie studios have decreased, so it's somewhat cheaper and easy for them to exist, and do stuff. Not to mention an hypothetical increase in TV studios, because of digital broadcasting.

That's good, seeing as it's my chosen career. i just am looking for a job to carry me through highschool and college.

It's time to prove to your friends that your worth a damn. Sometimes that means dying; sometimes that means killing a whole lotta people.

Virum, just get some shitty brainless bar work or something. Cleaning's good actually. Gives you a lot of time to think. Do your programming at night, and aim for that degree when the time is right. But be assured no-one with any money is likely to employ you without a CS degree. Of course you could just make it on your own which is hard but probably more rewarding. I've got a friend who's 18, writing a game in Blitz Basic which is basically a Snoodalike, but it's so utterly amazingly polished, he's aiming for a top 3 spot on the portals and is probably going to make a very, very large amount of money from it. That's a relatively sound plan.

my job that's carrying me through college (still at least 4 years to go) is a simple backroom job at target, making $7/hr for now (getting a raise in 4 days). Everything starts out small and eventually grows, even the job you dont plan to keep after you get your degree. For example the Target warehouse is offering to hire me this spring starting at $14/hr. Not too bad considering my college is paid off thus far without loans (finally, the government working for me). Then when you get through college you can leave the crap $15/hr jobs and shoot for big salary. At least, that's what I'm hoping for. o_O

Anyway with highschool work hours will suck, but college schedules are generally not as bad as highschool. In highschool you go to the same classes every day, college you may have a class that meets maybe twice a week. I'm managing 35+ work hours and college and it really isnt bad at all. It's more intimidating in highschool than it is when you actually arrive at college.

But be assured no-one with any money is likely to employ you without a CS degree.

When I was 11-16 years old, I earned my money by delivering advertisements (I got around 2-3 EUR/h = ~50 EUR/month). When I was 16 (in high school), I got a work as a sysadmin in a small company (half a dozen people at the office) thanks to a friend who had been doing some work there and told them about me when the previous sysadmin quit. I've been doing that sysadmin work since then (now I get 17 EUR/h, about 20 hours per month).

I've been studing computer science since 2002 in the University of Helsinki (http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/index.en.html) and my fourth year there started just. My first commercial programming project was 2 years ago, and I got it also through a friend (he did the marketing and I did the programming) and since then I've got money through the program's maintenance agreement and the adding of new features (30 EUR/h, >=10 h/month). Since this summer I've been doing some programming at a software company (50 EUR/h) where I was invited to by one of my course mates who works there.

So here I am 21 years old, with no degree (takes 2 more years) and about 3 work places plus some random jobs (such as fixing somebody's computer). I've never really tried to look for a job - the work has always come to me first. I suppose the easiest way to get a work is that your friends know your skills, and every now and then one of them hears about an opportunity for you. Then when you have a degree and some experience, it'll be easier to approach the companies directly.

Well, if this is the US then pay is to a degree regional and marches along with licing expenses.

40K woudl be very low in silicon valley.

I started at about $30K but that was abut 16 years ago. Just as an exmaple, apartment rent here has about doubled since then. House prices have more then tripled.

One thing you have to ask yourself is where you are headed for the future? What do you want to do with your life? You are going to spend too much of it workign not to be doing something you enjoy. The other factor to consider is growth room. $10/hr may seem like a king's ransom to a kid just out of highschool, but trust me, life has a way of getting mreo expensive. Where can you go for tht $10 an hour?

As a successful 42 year old engineer, Im making comfortably over $100K a year. Something to think about.

I WOULD say howevre don't rush school. If you don't know why you want to be there then go work in the real world a few years. I did that. All it took was 2 years of sh-t jobs to make me **really** undertand why I wanted a degree and, as I result, I was a very serious and successful student.

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